A Message from Bishop David M. O’Connell, C.M.:
This Jubilee Year is designated as a “Year of Hope.” On Good Friday, April 18, 2025, parishes throughout the Diocese of Trenton — indeed, throughout the entire world — are asked once again by the Church to take up the annual “Pontifical Good Friday Collection” for Christians in the Holy Land. This collection enables the Church struggling there to provide hope by supporting parishes, schools, ministries, hospitals, shrines throughout the Holy Land in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth and to supply Christians residing there with basic, essential needs.
As we read the Gospels, we need to remember that our Catholic faith was born in the Holy Land, the places where the Lord Jesus himself lived, walked, ministered, died and rose from the dead for our salvation. This annual collection enables Catholics worldwide, including here in the Diocese of Trenton, to maintain an “essential contact” and presence with Christians in these holy places who have lived through so much adversity and hardship, especially in recent times. It would not be an exaggeration to say that we provide a “lifeline” to the less than 2% of the region’s population living there.
As Bishop of the Diocese, I turn to you in our parishes once again, asking your generosity, not for ourselves but for them. 100% of the proceeds of the Pontifical Good Friday Collection go to support Christians of the Holy Land through the agency of our Diocese. As we recall the Lord’s passion, death and resurrection during Holy Week, we cannot and should not forget the very place where our faith and our Church was born in the blood of our Redeemer. Please be generous. Thank you.
Most Reverend David O’Connell, CM
Bishop of Trenton